What's free and what isn't: QR check-in, seat maps, closed applications, subscribable calendars — 10 event tools in one table

Free — available on the free or default plan at no extra charge. Paid — needs a paid plan or an extra charge (price given). Partly — a limited version or a workaround. No — not offered. Not stated — we could not confirm it on the vendor's own pages.

Two things stand out. Check-in and forms are commodities: every tool has them free. Seats, applications and calendars are not: only AnyEventTool has all three free, Luma has two (no seats), and most others have one at best.

Here the picture flips. AnyEventTool has none of these five, while Luma, Eventbrite, Humanitix and Ticket Tailor have most of them free. If your events depend on a waitlist, discount codes, SMS reminders or selling at the door, AnyEventTool is not your tool today.

The count treats every feature as equal, and they are not equal for every organizer. A wedding-hall dinner needs a seat map and nothing else on this list; a free weekly meetup needs reminders and a waitlist and never a seat map. Use the ranking to shortlist, then read the rows for the two or three features you cannot work without.

Where AnyEventTool ranks first is cost, not feature count: 0% platform fee on every plan, and seat maps, approval and calendars on the free plan. See lowest total ticket fees for fee scenarios.

Everything marked Paid above, with the price:

And what costs money in AnyEventTool, for completeness: more than 3 new events a month, more than 1 co-admin per event, broadcasts to calendar subscribers and a custom name.aet.events address need Pro (29 USD a month or 290 USD a year). Paid tickets, seat maps, approval, calendars with subscriptions and the live quiz are free.

Every one of the ten tools sends QR tickets and gives you a scanner for free. The differences are in how you scan and who can scan.

If your venue has weak mobile signal, an offline-capable app (Ticket Tailor, 2event) is worth more than any other difference here. With AnyEventTool, export the attendee list before doors open as a paper backup.

Reserved seating is where pricing differs most, because some tools treat it as a premium feature and some as standard.

Example: 200 seated tickets at 30 USD (6,000 USD), US cards, organizer absorbs all fees, Stripe at 2.9% + 0.30 USD where the tool uses your Stripe.

For Ukrainian organizers the same logic holds in hryvnias: AnyEventTool's seat maps are free with plata by mono at 1.3%, while RegToEVENT's seated rate is 4.5% + 0.30 EUR per ticket plus your acquiring. Ukrainian ticket agents (Karabas, Kontramarka, Concert.ua, Internet-bilet) all sell seated tickets, with organizer fees by contract.

What AnyEventTool's seat maps include on the free plan: up to 8 levels, 120 seats per row, 40 seats per table, 15,000 seats in total, standing zones, whole-table sales and a 15-minute seat hold by default. What they do not have: an accessible-seat type. Guide: selling reserved seats with a seating chart.

Approval-only registration means people apply, you review, and only approved people get a ticket (and, for paid events, only they are charged). It matters for curated meetups, closed communities, castings, investor dinners and events where safety depends on knowing who comes.

• Free: AnyEventTool (application forms with approval; for paid events, a pay-after-approval link), Luma (require approval; paid tickets are charged only on approval), Eventmate (manual approval toggle), RegToEVENT (moderation per event or per ticket type).
• Paid: Tito (approval flows in Tito Pro), 2event (pre-registration of applications in Premium, 50 USD a month).
• Workaround: Humanitix (questionnaire, then hidden tickets or access codes for those you accept).
• No: Eventbrite (invite-only events instead of approval).
• Not stated: Ticket Tailor, Hi.Events.

If you also need the venue to stay private until approval, AnyEventTool and Luma both hide the address: Luma shows it to approved guests, AnyEventTool can reveal venue, date or time in tickets at a set moment with an email to everyone. Guide: hiding the event location until registration.

There are two very different things called "calendar":

1. Add to calendar — a button that puts one event into the guest's calendar. Almost every tool has it.
2. A subscribable calendar — a feed (ICS) of all your events that people add once to Google, Apple or Outlook calendar, and that updates itself when you add, move or cancel events.

Only the second keeps a community coming back without newsletters. In this comparison it exists in two tools:

• AnyEventTool: public calendar pages, subscriptions, ICS feeds for Google, Apple and Outlook — free. Messages to subscribers need Pro.
• Luma: calendars with subscribers and a subscribable iCal feed — free; newsletters count toward the weekly send limit (500 a week on the free plan).

Tito, Ticket Tailor, Humanitix, Hi.Events, Eventmate and RegToEVENT offer only per-event or per-order add-to-calendar. Eventbrite's profile calendar was in development when we checked. Guide: how to publish an event calendar people can subscribe to.

These three features drive revenue and attendance, and AnyEventTool has none of them yet.

• Waitlist. When tickets sell out, a waitlist turns cancellations into sales. Free in Luma (including paid waitlists that charge only on approval), Eventbrite, Tito, Ticket Tailor, Humanitix (with automatic release) and Hi.Events.
• Promo codes. Early-bird and partner discounts are standard. Free in nine of the ten tools; AnyEventTool is the exception.
• SMS and messenger reminders. Reminders cut no-shows. Free in Luma (SMS in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and the Cayman Islands; WhatsApp elsewhere), Eventmate (Telegram, WhatsApp) and RegToEVENT (Telegram bot); paid in Ticket Tailor (UK only, 10p per order); partial in Eventbrite (SMS to opted-in buyers). AnyEventTool sends no automatic reminders.

If you run free events where no-shows hurt, or paid events that sell out, these gaps outweigh AnyEventTool's 0% fee. A common setup is to keep Luma for free events and reminders and use AnyEventTool for paid, seated or application-only events — see AET vs Luma.

For the money side of the Ukrainian options, see event organizer money in Ukraine; for Luma's limits in detail, Luma free vs Plus.

• You need a waitlist, promo codes or SMS reminders. AnyEventTool has none of them; Luma, Eventbrite, Ticket Tailor and Humanitix do.
• You sell at the door with cash or a card reader. No box office or POS in AnyEventTool.
• Your venue has no reliable internet. Every scan needs a connection; Ticket Tailor and 2event scan offline.
• You need an API or Zapier. AnyEventTool has only a read-only MCP server for AI assistants.
• You run more than 3 new events a month and want no subscription. The free plan covers 3; Pro is 29 USD a month.
• You want an audience to find you. AnyEventTool has no marketplace; Eventbrite, Luma and Humanitix do.

• Ten tools: seven international (Luma, Eventbrite, Humanitix, Ticket Tailor, Tito, Hi.Events, AnyEventTool) and three Ukrainian (Eventmate, RegToEVENT, 2event), chosen because they serve the same organizers: meetups, workshops, conferences and seated events.
• Ten features: the four in the title plus six that organizers most often ask about.
• Five values: Free, Paid, Partly, No, Not stated. "Not stated" means we could not find it on the vendor's own pages; it may exist. Vendors are welcome to send corrections.
• Counting: Free = 1; everything else = 0 in the "Free" column. Paid, Partly and No/Not stated are counted separately so you can see the shape, not just the score.
• Dates: feature cells checked on vendor pages on 1 October 2026 for our ranking research; prices, Luma's limits and Hi.Events' early-access features re-checked on 26 October 2026.
• Fee example: our calculation, same formulas as the ticket fee calculator, Stripe US at 2.9% + 0.30 USD per order, one ticket per order.
• AnyEventTool cells come from our own code, not marketing copy, including what is missing.

Checked 26 October 2026: Luma pricing and help centre; Eventbrite pricing and reserved seating; Ticket Tailor pricing (0.85 USD, seats +1 credit, 5,000 free tickets); Tito pricing; Hi.Events pricing (reserved seating and box office in early access); Humanitix fees; 2event pricing (Premium 50 USD/month, free registration under 50 attendees); RegToEVENT pricing; Eventmate; AnyEventTool pricing.

Checked 1 October 2026 (feature cells): the vendors' help centres and feature pages for check-in, seating, approval, calendars, waitlists, promo codes, messaging, API and door sales — including Humanitix pricing for seating without a fee, which blocked automated access on 26 October.

If a cell is wrong or out of date, write to support@anyeventtool.com and we will correct it with a date.